The Board of Directors of Adislan has sent a statement to defend itself and so that "the name of its entity is not questioned", after the information that has emerged in recent days due to the problems it is having to pay its workers, who have not received their last month's salary. In it, it affirms that the public money it receives "is audited at all times" and says it is not responsible for the "irregular" situation in which it has been providing the disability care service.
"Above all, we must ensure the tranquility of people with intellectual disabilities and their families, as well as defend the work of each and every one of the organization's workers, who have demonstrated and demonstrate every day their professional worth", begins by pointing out the association, which considers it its duty to "provide the necessary information so that a trajectory of more than 50 years is not affected", in which it affirms that it has "always" placed "people with intellectual disabilities and their families at the center of all the organization's decisions".
"The families of Adislan have been the ones who, for more than five decades, have fought to ensure the rights of people with intellectual disabilities, and they are the ones who have promoted and managed from the beginning to the present the disability care services on the island of Lanzarote", it adds.
That is why the Board of Directors of Adislan affirms that "as of today the entity has such magnitude, growing notably in the number of services and therefore in the number of people with disabilities cared for". "As a consequence, there has been an increase in funding from the public administration corresponding to the payment of the public place of each user, hence the importance of our annual budget", they point out from the association, after the Minister of Social Welfare of the Cabildo affirmed that the institution pays 2.3 million euros annually to this entity.
"Control and monitoring" of the accounts and the care provided
Likewise, it explains that as an association of public use it is governed by the regulations of the Law of Associations of the Canary Islands, which requires "an annual control of the social and economic aspects of the entity, presenting annually, in the general assembly of members, the accounts and social balance that, subsequently, together with the annual economic audit is presented to the registry of associations, of which they affirm not to have received until now "any report of irregularities of the association".
"The money that Adislan receives from the different public administrations, entities, partners and collaborators is audited at all times by professionals external to the entity", insists the association. Regarding the social balance, and specifically the actions and support they offer to people with intellectual disabilities, Adislan points out that "this is agreed and agreed upon with the families", who "have an important participation in the entity". In addition, they affirm that equally "it has a monitoring and control that responds to procedures that are audited annually by the external quality audit".
Likewise, the board of directors of Adislan points out that "the entity has been fully available, as it could not be otherwise, for the audits and consultancies that the Island Council of Lanzarote requests or does in Adislan, as has already been done". "We are very aware that the entity receives public money from all citizens and that this must be properly managed, and therefore Adislan will always be willing to all types of supervision and control, as it has been until now", it adds.
Regarding people with disabilities who have a place in public management services, it ensures that "all users have a public dependency place granted and designated in a timely manner by the Island Council of Lanzarote", which "delegates its subsequent management" to Adislan.
"The entity complies at all times with the procedures of the public administration, both in the protocols of entry of people with disabilities to the different centers, as well as in the control of work and support that is offered to each of them. It is the Cabildo de Lanzarote who sends the file of the person who will use a public place to the entity, designating the corresponding service and then starting the internal procedure of entry to the resource, the association states.
Likewise, it explains how is the "control and monitoring" of the public administration of the work done with each user: "there is a protocol of there is a protocol of communication of incidents, understood as; absences, illness, emergency situations, important behavioral alterations, etc., that social workers transfer in a timely manner to the dependency service. On the other hand, the entity regularly sends a report of each of the users, which contains their personal file, individual work plan, programs and supports received and proposed, as well as the quality of life assessment that the entity performs annually with each of them". This, in his opinion "reflects the monitoring and control by the professionals of the Cabildo de Lanzarote", with whom they always affirm to have maintained "a very professional relationship between both parties, marked by a great teamwork and excellent direct communication".
Another of the protocols that Adislan affirms that it follows "is the one of the monthly invoicing", which it points out that it is "marked by the public administration itself, "The entity, in order to raise the invoices to the Cabildo, has to pass a first filter of authorization by the Island Council of Lanzarote, which is who authorizes the list of users and days attended in the month, only when this authorization arrives, the entity proceeds to issue the corresponding invoices, with the prices per place marked by the Government of the Canary Islands, with the same content and format since last year and that are indicated by the Cabildo itself", it adds.
"Neither participant nor responsible" for the irregular situation of the service
Regarding the "irregular" situation with the Cabildo of the public services, the entity indicates that it had been "signing an agreement for more than 20 years". However, it points out that in 2017 "a draft agreement was drawn up as every year", which "finally unilaterally by the public administration is not signed".
"The entity at all times has tried to regularize the situation in conversations with the different councilors of the Social Welfare Area since 2017, being very aware of the situation of legal weakness in which the association was and is", assures the board of directors, which thus affirms to share with the Cabildo "the urgent need for contractual regularization". In fact, it points out that for this reason "it has been transferred in different reports that the special situation of continuity of the services provided by the entity be regulated, based on the Public Sector Contracts Law, which states that if the nullity of a contract would cause a serious disruption to the public service, it may be arranged in the same agreement the continuation, until urgent measures are taken to avoid the damage".
Adislan "has understood that until a solution is given to this situation, we continue working under the guidelines that the administration itself indicates, with the aim of never ceasing to provide services to all our users and their families", it adds.
"With a relationship for more than 20 years between the entity and the Island Council of Lanzarote, and under the experience and work premises based on trust, collaboration, and mutual cooperation, this situation was considered as exceptional and derived from internal procedures of the public administration difficult to solve" continues Adislan, which therefore points out that it does not consider itself "cooperator, nor participant, nor responsible for said irregular situation, complying with all its obligations with each of the users under the laws" that frame them "as is the Law of Personal Autonomy and Dependency and the guidelines marked in the agreements signed previously".
"Unbearable" debts due to "loss of funding"
Regarding the pending payment of the April payroll, Adislan explains that "it responds to the lack of liquidity of the entity, since the Cabildo de Lanzarote pays the services a month in arrears". "The non-payment of invoices in the corresponding time breaks our liquidity, forcing us to assume the commitments with our own resources up to a limit where we generate defaults, as is the current situation", states the board of directors of the association, which claims to have faced "the payment of all personnel and operating expenses with own funds since February".
Likewise, it assures that "the entity has been supporting since 2019 a very important salary increase in the sector, which was not subject to a public funding increase to cover it" and that "since the same year" they have had "a loss of funding by the public administration". "These situations have caused deficits and therefore debts in the years 2019 and 2020, unaffordable for an NGO", he assures.
Adislan hopes that with this statement the society of Lanzarote has "first-hand information" of those who manage the organization and "tranquilize all the uncertainties and concerns generated in recent days". "And especially that the name of an entity and of all those who have formed and are part of it is not questioned, since for many years it has been demonstrated on the island of Lanzarote, that we have covered a primary function in the provision of public services with public guarantee to people with intellectual disabilities and their families, because we understand and defend that the life project and the rights of people can not be affected by administrative procedures", he concludes.
